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Freedom of Speech at Universities

by drmike Sunday, Feb. 14, 2010 at 5:57 AM

Events this week in both the USA and the UK have once again shown the double standard for free speech at universities

Events this week in both the USA and the UK have once again shown the double standard for free speech at universities-- free speech for any type of radical Islamist cause is entirely acceptable, even rewarded, but any expression of support for Israel can be forcibly suppressed without apparent consequences.

Southern California saw this in practice on two UC campuses: Irvine, where Israel's ambassador to the US Michael Oren was speaking, and UCLA School of Law where Daniel Taub of Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs spoke. While Taub, Principal Deputy Legal Advisor to the MFA, spoke about the Goldstone report on February 8, protestors filed in front of him, preventing him from speaking until they were cleared by campus police. They justified their action by claiming that "“The Israeli government shouldn’t be able to speak with no response” from the Palestinian side" Of course, there are many events at UCLA that promote the anti-Zionist viewpoint, not only from students but also from faculty, without any "response" being allowed-- and without forcible obstruction of the event. At Irvine, which has been the site of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic hate speech for years without any condemnation from the university administration, Ambassador Oren was the target of a well organized series of disruptions that resulted in the arrest of 11 students-- and, at long last, Chancellor Michael Drake finally (and tepidly) indicated to the protestors that he was "embarrassed" by their actions.

Judge for yourself--watch the video:

Of course, the proof will be in the consequences provided by these universities. But don't hold your breath. There are two sets of rules in international relations-- one for all countries except Israel, and one for Israel. Other countries have the right to defend their civilians from cross-border attacks; Israel does not. Other countries have the right to decide who may enter their country; Israel does not. Other countries have the right to decide who may become citizens of their country; Israel does not. And, similarly, there are two rules for university campuses-- anti-Israel speech that often crosses the line to overt anti-Semitism cannot be restricted or even criticized, but any event in support of Israel or Zionism can be legitimately shut down by force. In the fall of 2008, the Tikvah student group at UC Berkeley was disciplined merely because some of their members shouted "liar" at Norman Finkelstein as they exited his talk. Yet no action had been taken against the Muslim Students Assocation at Cal when they shouted down Daniel Pipes and harrassed Israel supporters attending his talk in 2004.

Of course, things could be worse: when Israel's deputy foreign minister spoke at Oxford University 2 days ago, he was met not only by assailants who were restrained by police, but by a heckler who shouted "itbach el-Yahud" (Arabic for "slaughter the Jews", the battle cry of pogromists in Mandatory Palestine and of anti-Israel protestors in San Francisco). Ayalon is considering pressing charges . If he does, you can be sure that Muzzlewatch will be all over it--how dare those nefarious Zionists interfere with this man's right to promote hatred!

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More info

by more info Sunday, Feb. 14, 2010 at 3:13 PM

9 UCI students and 3 students from UC Riverside were arrested by UCI police and escorted out of the lecture hall. Professor Mark P. Petracca, director of UCI's Political Science Department, addressed the protesters during the event and called their behavior embarrassing:

"This is beyond embarrassing...this is no way for our undergraduate students to behave. We have an opportunity to hear from a policy maker relevant to one of the most important issues facing this planet and you are preventing not only yourself from hearing him but hundreds of other people in this room and hundreds of other people in an overflow room. Shame on you! This is not an example of free speech."

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The Muslim Public Affairs Council Intrusion Into the UC-Irvine Incident

by http://garyfouse.blogspot.com/ Sunday, Feb. 14, 2010 at 3:20 PM



I am posting this article by Paul Kajawsky of the LA Middle Eastern Examiner. It is in regards to the UC-Irvine incident Monday night when members of the Muslim Student Union disrupted a speech by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren. Mr Kajawsky specifically addresses the intrusion into the affair by the Muslim Public Affairs Council in defense of the violators.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Muslim Public Affairs Council defends students' "right" to shout down an Israeli speaker

February 12, 12:20 AMLA Middle Eastern Policy Examiner, Paul Kujawsky

One doesn't want to invoke George Orwell lightly. But there is something positively Orwellian about defending, in the name of freedom of speech, a gang's attempt to shut down a speech.

The facts are these:

Israel's Ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, was invited to speak at the University of California Irvine. The invitation came from the Law School and the Political Science Department. Now, UC Irvine has an active--some would say, aggressive (others would say, obnoxious)--chapter of the Muslim Student Union. The UCI MSU has a, shall we say, controversial history, ranging from allegedly fundraising for Hamas to hosting virulently anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic speakers.

Enter the double standard. The MSU feels perfectly free to bring to campus speakers that Jews, friends of Israel, and others consider absolutely repulsive. And it has the right to do so (aside from providing material support to terrorists, which is forbidden by federal law). But when the MSU considers a speaker not to be kosher (as it were), it seeks to disrupt his appearance.

Thus, the MSU reacted to Oren's approaching visit to UC Irvine with a February 8 release:

The members of the Muslim Student Union at the University of California, Irvine, condemn and strongly oppose the presence of Michael Oren on our campus today. We resent that the Law School and the Political Science Department have agreed to cosponsor a public figure who represents a state that continues to commit human rights violations, thereby breaking international law and law of Israeli accord [sic]. We strongly condemn the university for cosponsoring, and therefore, inadvertently supporting the ambassador of a state that is condemned by more UN Human Rights Council resolutions than all other countries in the world combined. . . .

As people of conscience, we oppose Michael Oren’s invitation to our campus. Propagating murder is not a responsible expression of free speech. Oren and his partners should only be granted a speakers platform in the International Criminal Court and should not be honored on our campus.

When Ambassador Oren took the podium that evening, there was what some members of the audience called "a coordinated attack." As reported in the Los Angeles Jewish Journal:

With rumors circulating of students’ plans to disrupt Oren’s speech, university officials spoke to MSU members before the event in an attempt to ensure civil discourse, according to Shalom C. Elcott, Chief Executive Officer of the Jewish Federation Orange County. . . .

Oren, a New Jersey native and best-selling author of two authoritative books on the Middle East, was less than two minutes into his talk when the first heckler jumped up and shouted, ”Propagating murder is not an expression of free speech,” followed by thunderous applause and cheers from protesters seated in groups throughout the audience. Oren continued to talk, only to be interrupted every few minutes by another protester and more cheering and boos. Many audience members also cheered Oren.

By the third interruption, police began escorting individual protesters out of the room.

Oren had to leave the stage for twenty minutes. Police arrested eleven people, including the president of the MSU. UCI Chancellor Michael Drake lamented: "The principles that make us a great university have been violated this evening.”

A grim moment for an institution dedicated to freedom of thought. Now here's the truly scary bit. The Muslim Public Affairs Council wrote a letter to Chancellor Drake. Did the letter deplore the thuggish behavior of the Muslim students? We should be so lucky. No, the letter asks Drake to investigate the arrests, because the hecklers were exercising their First Amendment rights:

"These students had the courage and conscience to stand up against aggression, using peaceful means. We cannot allow our educational institutions to be used as a platform to threaten and discourage students who choose to practice their First Amendment right."

You see, in MPAC's universe of inverted values, giving a speech is "aggression," but trying to prevent the speech from being given is the "practice [of] their First Amendment right." Orwell wrote: "But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought." Let us therefore try to express with clarity the fundamental principle at stake: Calling the suppression of speech an element of freedom of speech is a perversion of language, thought, and values. Curtailing the free speech of an invited speaker, and infringing on the right of the listeners to hear him, is simply bullying, and has nothing to do with the liberal values of which freedom of speech is the keystone.
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CAIR acts as fifth Column

by http://www.solomonia.com/blog/ Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2010 at 2:11 AM

Hopefully this will wake a few more people up to the fifth column reality that is the Council on American Islamic Relations (and the National Lawyers Guild). After what we saw at UC Irvine, this email is both disgusting...and illuminating (emphasis mine):

CAIR, NLG Ask Calif. University, DA to Drop Charges Against 'Irvine 11'

University's action against protesters selectively and disproportionately penalizes students, harms free speech

(ANAHEIM, CA, 2/13/10) ­ The Greater Los Angeles Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-LA) and the Los Angeles office of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG-LA) sent a letter Friday to University of California, Irvine (UCI) Chancellor Michael V. Drake urging him to drop charges against 11 students who peacefully protested at a UCI-sponsored event. A letter was also sent today to the Orange County District Attorney's office by CAIR-LA.

Earlier this week, the students spoke out during the speech of the Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren at the event, which was also co-sponsored by the UCI School of Law and by the university's political science department. The students, since dubbed the "Irvine 11," left in a voluntary and peaceful manner and were then detained briefly and cited by UCI police officers.

VIDEO: Protesters Disrupt Israeli Ambassador Speech at UCI

In a letter sent to the university administration, CAIR-LA Executive Director Hussam Ayloush and NLG-LA Executive Director James Lafferty stated in part:

"the right to freely express one's opinions is a most sacred freedom protected by our Constitution, finding college campuses to be its most cultivating venue. Civil protest against government abuses is a time-honored tradition that has led to the end of apartheid and the birth of civil rights.

"The students voiced political views to shame the representative of a foreign government embroiled in controversy for its outrageous violations of international humanitarian and human rights law. Delivering this message in a loud and shocking manner expressed the gravity of the charges leveled against Israeli policies, and falls within the purview of protected speech."

In the letter to the district attorney's office, Ayloush stated in part:

"The selective application of laws by off-campus law enforcement agencies to students engaged in constitutionally-protected political speech will be viewed by the American Muslim community and those who value free speech as an attempt to repress legitimate student protest and will undermine this important First Amendment Right."

The letters to the university administration and the district attorney's office urged that the "charges and disciplinary actions against the students involved be dropped."

Representatives of CAIR-LA have been in touch with the students, their parents, and many community members who have expressed concerns that the university's actions amount to retribution against and intimidation of students for expressing dissenting political views. CAIR-LA has also been in touch with Chancellor Drake since Monday's incident to share the Muslim community's free speech concerns...

The First Amendment? Legitimate political views? This is dragging the Constitution through the muck. It's also the sort of lawfare typical of CAIR, the NLG and the ACLU. They intend to make it expensive for the university to do anything. Watch that video again and see what's being defended, even glorified.

Update 2/14: Power Line has a similar email from a group called ActLeft. Scott writes:

...The actions of the MSU supporters who disrupted Oren's speech were obviously intended to silence Oren. The ActLeft message cloaks the MSU supporters in the garb of "civil disobedience," but the actions of the MSU are both hateful and tyrannical. The actions are based on the proposition that the defense of Israel in speech is beyond the bounds of civilized discourse just as the defense of Israel in deed is illegitimate because Israel is illegitimate...

...The MSU is a chapter of the Muslim Student Association, which was itself founded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood. They seek the extinction of Israel. Resistance is required. If the spines of campus administrators need to be stiffened, it is not only supporters of the MSU from whom administrators should hear.

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yar

by Ping Pong Hypocrisy Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2010 at 8:20 AM

I see it now, it's good if the pro Israeli side wants to inhibit free speech and it's bad if the anti-Israeli (incorrectly labeled Muslim and then associated with the dreaded Muslim Brotherhood ) factions want to protest the speach of the pro-Israeli faction.

Yup.

Talking about double standards; we should revisit the Professor Robbinson UCSB debacle, where the Israeli megaphone nearly blew itself to pieces trying to squelch the right of academic freedom.

Two faced and hysterically paranoid, this pi-rat state cannot endure harsh light or criticism while it demands to be allowed to tell lies, unopposed.

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Free speech for me, not thee

by Free speech for me, not thee Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2010 at 3:14 PM

Nasrallah, head of Hezzbollah always says " We will use your democracy to end your democracy". Thats whats hapening here.

Only "politically correct" opinions can be heard.

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my point exactly

by only 'chosen' free speach Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2010 at 3:24 PM

and we all know who wants to do the choosing.

I know the Is really solution is 'free speech' zones and razor wire.

The 1st amendment in ashes.

Evil should be shouted down, as it represents the minority. Even when wearing the cloak of authority.

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Maybe its time to start doing it to them

by good for the goose Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2010 at 3:46 PM

maybe its time to give them a taste of their own medicine



MSU’s hatred of Jews and Israel is profound. At the organization's on-campus events, its members commonly wear green armbands to signal their allegiance to the terrorist group Hamas. MSU also has displayed posters on the UCI campus that equate the Star of David with the Nazi Swastika.

In February 2001, MSU hosted the radical cleric Imam Muhammad al-Asi, who told his UCI audience: “The Zionist-Israeli lobby ... is taking the United States government and the United States people to the abyss. We have a psychosis in the Jewish community that is unable to co-exist equally and brotherly with other human beings. You can take a Jew out of the ghetto, but you cannot take the ghetto out of the Jew.”

In 2002, a sign posted on the UCI campus by MSU stated: “Israelis Love to Kill Innocent Children.” That same year, MSU sponsored a speech by the radical Oakland imam, Abdel Malik-Ali, in the course of which he said: “Israel wants Palestinians to have their own state. It’s beyond that now. No. That’s off the table. One state. Majority rules. Us. The Muslims.”

On February 26, 2004, MSU again brought Malik-Ali to the UCI campus to deliver a speech titled “America under Siege: The Zionist Hidden Agenda.” According to UCI’s student newspaper, he “implied that Zionism is a mixture of ‘chosen people-ness and white supremacy’; that the Iraqi war is in the process of ‘Israelization’; that the Zionists had the ‘Congress, the media and the FBI in their back pocket’; that the downfall of former Democratic [presidential] front-runner Howard Dean was due to the Zionists; and that the Mossad [Israel’s intelligence agency] would have assassinated Al Gore if he was elected [in 2000] just to bring Joe Lieberman (his Jewish vice-president) to power.”

In the spring of 2004, MSU and the Society of Arab Students (SAS) co-sponsored their fourth annual “Zionism Awareness Week,” during which members of both groups again wore green armbands to show their support for Hamas.

In June 2004, MSU asked UCI’s graduating Muslim students to wear green sashes bearing the word “shahada,” the Arabic word for the “martyrdom” of a suicide bomber, to their graduation ceremony. Two dozen students complied with this MSU request.

At a February 2005 MSU-organized event held in the center quad at UC Irvine, Abdel Malik-Ali stood at a podium bearing the inscription “Desperation of the Zionist Lobby,” and told his audience of some 150 mostly Muslim listeners: “Zionism is a mixture, a fusion of the concept of white supremacy and the chosen people.” He complained about Zionist control of the American media, Zionist complicity in the war in Iraq, and Zionists’ ability to deflect justified criticism. “You will have to hear more about the Holocaust when you accuse them of their Nazi behavior,” Malik-Ali declared. “One state. Majority rule,” he added, to rousing applause. “Check that out. Us. The Muslims.”

At a March 2006 event at UC Irvine, MSU led as many as 1,000 Muslim students in protesting the decision of the event’s sponsors to publicly display the “offensive” Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, cartoons that had recently set off massive demonstrations and riots throughout the Muslim world. In front of several television camera crews, MSU members began the protest by rolling out green prayer mats and reciting a prayer in Arabic. Many of them wore their customary green, pro-Hamas armbands. When a crowd of counter-protesters stood behind an American and Israeli flag and sang “God Bless America,” the Muslim students responded by chanting: “Hey Republicans Stop the Hate! All You Do Is Instigate,” and “Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho! The Prophet’s Cartoons Have Got to Go!”

MSU organized a May 2006 “Holocaust in the Holy Land” event which consisted of four days of anti-Israel lectures and presentations portraying the Jewish State as the modern-day avatar of Nazi Germany. The keynote speaker for the event was the Holocaust-denier Norman Finkelstein, whose speech, titled “Obstacles to Peace: Israelis or Palestinians,” identified Israel as the world’s worst human rights violator. Adjacent to a mock Israeli “apartheid” wall which they had set up in the center of the UCI campus, MSU students wearing leather sandals and taqiyahs (skullcaps) distributed fliers bearing the title “Exploiting the Holocaust to Justify Genocide.” A quote from Finkelstein himself appeared just below: “The Holocaust has become the ideological justification for the oppression of the Palestinian people.”

Other guest speakers at the week’s festivities included Abdel Malik-Ali, Muhammed Al-Asi (whose lecture was titled “Hamas: The People’s Choice”), and Rabbi David Weiss of Neturei Karta (whose speech was called "Zionism Hijacking Judaism).”

Abdel Malik-Ali was the featured speaker at an October 5, 2006 MSU event, where he told a crowd of roughly 200 cheering students: “They [Jews] think they are superman, but we, the Muslims, are kryptonite. They [Jews] know that their days are numbered.”

In May 2007, MSU held an “Israel: Apartheid Resurrected” week that featured twice-daily speeches and rallies condemning the State of Israel. On May 17, Abdel Malik-Ali delivered a lecture titled “UC Intifada: How you can help Palestine,” wherein he informed UCI’s Muslim students (who again wore green armbands as well as T-shirts reading “UC Intifada” and “Freedom Fighter”) that a martyr’s death is the most honorable form of death. “Victory or martyrdom,” Malik-Ali asserted, are the only two viable options available to the Palestinians in their battle against Israel. Refusing to recognize Israel’s existence, Malik-Ali referred to that country not by its name, but only as the “Zionist Apartheid State.”

In 2007, a UC Irvine student blogger identifying herself as “OC Apostate” (she had recently left the Muslim faith in which she was raised) was forced to shut down her blog (wherein she criticized Islam’s intolerance), for fear that members of the campus MSU would harm her family in retribution for her apostasy. She explained:

“I started a blog as way to express myself. Word finally got around that it was me [who was writing it] and my family got threats that if I didn’t shut up something might happen. I didn’t want them to suffer for something I had done. So I deleted everything. … They [other Muslim students] saw me with my hair out [of the hijab]. They knew who I was. The reaction was a lot of gossip and speculation about my upbringing. Women who I didn’t know gave me dirty looks. … I don’t underestimate them. … The notion of a traitor in your own community is the worse thing that could possibly happen. There is no room for ex-Muslims in a Muslim society. The punishment for being an apostate is death.”

MSU invited Yvonne Ridley, a reporter and activist for Iranian PRESS-TV, to speak at UC Irvine on November 12, 2007. Ridley, who also writes a column for the New York-based publication Daily Muslims, is a member of the Respect Party led by British Member of Parliament George Galloway. She was formerly employed as a senior editor by Al Jazeera and helped launch that website’s English-language version in 2003.

Ridley supports divestment from Israel, a nation she has described as “that disgusting little watchdog of America that is festering in the Middle East.” She says that her Respect Party “is a Zionist-free party,” adding that “if there was any Zionism in the Respect Party they would be hunted down and kicked out. We have no time for Zionists.”

In April 2008, MSU sponsored an event titled “Never Again? The Palestinian Holocaust.” It included presentations bearing such titles as: “Blood on Our Hands: American Involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict”; “Gaza: Life in a Cage”; “Rachel Corrie: The Spirit of Sacrifice”; “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine”; and “Death to Apartheid: A Farewell to Israel.” Among the featured speakers were Norman Finkelstein, Anna Baltzer, Ilan Pappe, Abdel Malik-Ali, Muhammad al-Asi, and the parents of the late Rachel Corrie.

MSU’s aforementioned Muslim student newspaper, Alkalima, once published a special report called “Zionism: The Forgotten Apartheid,” which glorified Hamas and Hezbollah as noble warriors fighting Israeli oppression.

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trembling under a Jew's skirt

by pathetic... Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2010 at 4:15 PM

and where there is no where to go...we see the frantic dash under the Jewish faith.

While they commit countless war crimes and scream "rape".

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"trembling under a Jew's skirt"

by COINTELPRO detector Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2010 at 4:25 PM

The previous post was made by a documented infiltrator. Nobody could be so stupid as to dismiss the Palestinians in such fashion.

http://la.indymedia.org/news/hidden.php?id=234994

"And from the Guardian which has about 5 subscribers."

(snip)

"another staged, cropped photo, meaning nothing.

and of course the guardian published it. Big woop"

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